My Hard Drive
 

Is almost full in my laptop? It is a Dell Inspiron 8600 with an 80 gig HD, tons of memory, and I only have about 5% free space. Some things are not working. I have an external HD of 100gig but my experience in the past has been that I was unable to move actual programs to the external drive because they need the C drive to run. Any suggestions short of buying a new computer?

Defrag and erase files and programs that you don't need. Or copy them to disk if you don't want to throw them away but don't need them on your comp. (obvious)


If you have any programs that you used temporarily uninstall them!! Of course you know all this. Move all of the text files and photos and random crap to the external and keep only the programs on C. Anytime you need to save an item save it to your external and just use the C to run your programs. You can create a shortcut to your external hard drive to your desktop which makes things easier to move....and keep organized.

You won't be able to defrag to reorganize your files until you have at least 15 percent of free space to work with!!...Unless things have changed...So burn files, move them, or throw them away if you don't want them.

Or just listen to someone that knows what in the hell they are talking about....
:)

That's what I did.......

I would go through the major folders on C: and hunt down exactly what's taking up all that space. (Right-click --> Properties will tell you the size of any particular folder.) Maybe you have 80 gigs of programs, but that sounds really excessive to me. Surely most of the space is actually taken up by photos or music, something like that? Even if it is programs, perhaps you can uninstall some that you don't ever use?

get rid of the porn movie clips...that's an easy 40 gigs right there.

There was some programs, free that showed you what was eating up space. Sorry I don't recall any names.

Never! That collection is not replaceable.

Merc. Have a look at this. I haven't used it since win98 and the small drive days.
http://w3.win.tue.nl/nl/onderzoek/on.../sequoiaview//

As others noted, and to better summarize it. You have two types of files. Those that execute the OS and programs. And those that are data. Data will clearly be the largest consumer of disk. If you programs are working properly, then all that data will be in subdirectories of "My Documents".

Two ways to move or duplicate (safety backup) that data. First is to load an OS on a second drive (see below for also creating contents of a 1st partition), then create the same user account, then move the drive to the laptop, and finally use the old OS to copy everything in the old My Documents to a new My Documents on that second drive. Now you have a backup of data and potentially a drive that only need be fixed to boot in the Dell and then reloaded with those programs.

Second is to network this laptop to another computer and transfer all that data to the other networked computer drive.

Once you have this data safely stored elsewhere, then buy a larger drive for the Dell, reload the OS on that new drive, and then reload all programs. Programs cannot be copied for a large number of reasons including unique program configuration data is stored in the registry. Registry cannot be copied from any one system to another (without significant technical knowledge).

A third alternative is to use some disk copy program such as Ghost to copy everything from that 80 Gig drive to a larger new drive (that will also fit in a laptop). This is a most preferred option because Dells have something you definitely want to preserve - the 1st partition contains comprehensive hardware diagnostics that you definitively want on the new C: drive when installed in the Inspiron. Of course, this option has a complication. Get a special cable so that the laptop drive can temporarily be used as a slave drive in another system that will make the actual disk image copy. I don't know if Ghost can copy to an externally attached drive. Maybe it can.

This third option, if you can work it out, will result in a best (ideal) solution.

If the largest 'user' of space if just files (music, photos, video clips, documents) you can move them to an external drive w/out a need for an OS on that external drive. Don't bother with that pain and cost unless you need to.

As everyone else said, move the files, delete programs and files you don't use. Be sure for programs to use "remove programs" to properly uninstall them. I have XP, and when I got to "add or remove programs" it shows how often a program is used, and the last time it was used. That's what I usually use to decide what to delete.

If you just delete the executable file for programs, lines will remain in the registry, needlessly slowing down the computer.

I don't know how well organized you are, but my old Norton Utilities used to search for duplicate files, infrequently used files, and other types of candidates for deletion. Cnet probably has some type of free utility to do that for you. At least a trial version you could use once.

Thanks everyone I am considering my options. TheMerc.

You don't need a new OS.

No comment from Sheldon yet?

No he's in the VD thread.

:)

(men's valentines day)

mercy:

I use this tool for quick and dirty checking for which folders have lots of files. You'll like it.